SYNOPSIS: With the American Civil War reaching its inevitable conclusion, President Abraham Lincoln (Day-Lewis) races against time to abolish slavery before the Southern States attempt to quash his efforts. Though an early peace would save lives, Lincoln must decide whether to free the country’s slaves or end the war.

Based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team Of Rivals, Steven Spielberg’s commitment to lovingly recreating an authentic ambience makes Lincoln translate as a thoroughly engrossing historical experience. Continue reading →

Seeing as everyone was a little Oscar’d out yesterday, I thought I’d wait until today to put these up. I’m not going to say too much, as I think I exhausted my point over on Twitter (@iamnotwaynegale) and said everything I wanted to when predicting my nominations here.

The Alliance Of Women Film Journalists really do crack me up. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a woman, but some of the categories these ladies use to reward feminism or slap the hand of those who aren’t doing us many favours are downright hysterical.

Zero Dark Thirty is their outright winner (it led the nominations) and the other acting awards don’t defer from what we’ve already seen, but with awards such as ‘Kick Ass Award For Best Female Action Star’ and ‘Actress Most In Need Of A New Agent’, you need to give this list of winners a proper look – even if they do piss all over my love of Anna Karenina. But they do give Adam Sandler a stern telling off and, at present, that can only be a good thing.

After leading the nominations, it’s no surprise that Paul Thomas Anderson won Best Director, but apart from Philip Seymour Hoffman’s award, it doesn’t really make much of a mark here.

Daniel Day-Lewis and Jessica Chastain are old news and mortal locks for Oscar nominations, with their respective chances of walking away with the grand prize on the night rather easy to visualise.

Argo took Best Picture and Anne Hathaway wins another trophy for what is surely one of the world’s largest mantlepieces. Cloud Atlas (yeah, you heard – still so excited about seeing this), Skyfall and Moonrise Kingdom are also recognised.